In 1992, 178 Governments adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. In Principle 10, the Declaration states as follows: “Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.” As well as reflecting the needs of the public, public participation enhances the bidirectional flow of information between civil society and the authorities and ensures greater accountability.

To be effective, public participation relies upon other two pillars: access to information, to ensure that the public can participate in an informed fashion; and access to justice, to ensure that participation happens in reality and not just on paper.

The Government and the public authorities, including governmental bodies from all sectors, have an obligation to ensure the public’s right to participate in decision-making on issues related to water. The Government must provide the necessary stimulus, tools, information and assistance to enable transparent public participation. It must also build the legal, administrative and economic framework and educate and inform the public about their rights, and about their responsibility and moral obligation to participate. This requires transparent and accountable institutions, and a suitable legal, regulatory and policy framework. Political, sociocultural and economic factors inevitably shape this environment.

For effective public participation at all levels of decision-making, the following are needed:

• Awareness of the public’s rights and the authorities’ obligations. The benefits are often not clearly understood by the authorities. And the public is often not aware of an ongoing public-participation procedure or may not be motivated to participate in a public discussion. This could be due to a lack of time, to language or literacy issues, or to limited access to communication tools. It could also be due to discrimination based on gender or ethnicity.
• Appropriate regulatory framework or short time frames. The lack of a general legal framework providing for effective public participation might be an obstacle. In particular, deadlines for examining documents and for submitting opinions and comments may often be too short.
• Access to information related to the decision-making process. Irrelevant or incorrect information, or withholding of information due to its supposed confidentiality, sometimes keeps the public from engaging.
• Political will. The authorities often regard public participation as a complicated and time-consuming process.
• Cross-sectoral cooperation. Cooperation between different ministries and institutions can be difficult. And it is often exacerbated by high turnover rates of staff.
• Funding. The potentially high cost of running complex or extensive public-participation procedures can be an obstacle.

>> Access to a selection of UN publications on participation and water